Scars
by Redd Phoenix
Summary: Hermione deals with the death of her parents and the identity of their murderer.


**TITLE: Scars [1/1]  
AUTHOR: Redd [reddphoenix@hotmail.com]  
DISTRIBUTION: List archives. Anyone else, please ask first.  
SPOILERS: All four books, especially GoF.  
RATING/CONTENT: R, a very minor Snape/Hermione, violence and a mention of rape  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. JK Rowling's.  
**

They hadn't met her at the train, and that really should have been her first clue that something was off. They'd never missed the train before, and they'd always been waiting at platform nine and three- quarters at the end of every term. Always. It was tradition, routine, and her parents were nothing if not meticulous when holding to a routine. 

_"Mum? Dad?"_

She'd heard the laughter first. A cold, harsh, taunting laugh that echoed through the house, chilled every inch of her body, and caused her breath to hiccough in her throat. She walked forward though, entering the darkness, hand wrapped so tightly around her wand that her knuckles were starkly white. She was in Gryffindor, and for a reason, and she would face whatever was in the house without flinching. 

_"The little Mudblood Granger!"_

She hadn't recognized that voice, not at first, but she could feel the hate and anger in it washing over her. Mudblood. They'd known who she was, what she was. The hope she'd had for a random act of violence was dashed with that word. Well, that word and the wand pointed at her throat, the white mask obscuring her attacker's features, and the Dark Mark glittering with a vile green light above the room. 

_"I'm going to make you scream, little girl. I want to hear you beg."_

Oddly enough, she wasn't afraid to die. She never really had been, not when trying to get to the Stone in first year, or when facing a Basilisk in second year, or when staring Sirius Black in the face during third year. It wasn't in her nature then or now. Her eyes slid from the wand in front of her to the pale forms splayed out on the floor in front of the fireplace, and a sob tore at her throat, but she swallowed it, closing her eyes against the image of her parents' bodies. Physically, she may have blocked out the images, but mentally, she doubted she would ever be able to get the image of her mother's spread legs out of her mind. 

_"Leave her, Macnair."_

That voice she had recognized almost instantly. She'd heard it almost daily for four years, and she would never forget the dread it could stir in her stomach. Dread, however, was not the emotion that she felt at the back of her throat this time. Rage boiled there now. Rage at the fact that he had been here, he could have stopped the attack at anytime. And yet, he had remained silent. 

_"It's better to let her live with what has happened. It hurts more that way." _

"Oh, Severus, mental torture was always your specialty. Not mine." 

They'd left her alone though, leaving the house without another word, Snape silencing any protests that Macnair might have had. They simply left her there with what was left of her parents, but she wasn't alone long. The aurors arrived shortly after, and took one long look at her sitting calmly by the bodies before physically lifting her out of the house. 

_ "Names, girl!" _

"Macnair." 

"Anyone else?" 

"...No." 

She'd probably saved his life in that moment, not that he knew or cared, but she could have given his name. He wouldn't have gotten another chance, even if Dumbledore had vouched for him again. He'd be given to the Dementors or executed. She would have her vengeance, but she hadn't. The Ministry had sent her to the Weasleys' after that, at Dumbledore's behest. The summer months had been filled with attacks, and for some reason, Voldemort was allowing the children to live. 

Hogwarts opened in September with a third of its student population having been newly orphaned. 

And she had gone to his classes, sat in his lectures, listen to him take points from Gryffindor, and remained silent through all of it. Dumbledore knew; he had to. Snape had told him, she knew that, but neither had approached her, and she really had no urge to relive that day with Harry or Ron. Sometimes, she would feel him watching her, and she would glance up from her cauldron to meet his eyes. She refused to look away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of breaking her. 

And all of that led to one moment, when tired of the apologetic stares and whispers in the common room, she had fled to the highest point in the castle, standing on the balcony over-looking the Quidditch pitch in the pouring rain, and he had been there, watching, waiting for all she knew. They had stood there, silent, for an hour, and it wasn't until she could feel the cold rain soaking through her robes and her sweater that she turned to him. 

"Why?" It was the first word she had spoken to him since the attack, and he blinked at it, stepping out of the shadows, drawing the hood of his cloak over his head. 

"We had orders." His voice was the same silky whisper that it was in class, but she shivered anyway, telling herself it was from the cold and not the memories. 

"You could have stopped it." 

"Perhaps." She turned from him, bracing her arms on the rail of the balcony, staring down at the grass, wondering briefly, and hysterically, that if she jumped, would she leave a stain? Or was there some spell that would eliminate any remainder of her suicide? She swallowed a giggle and turned her face up to the sky. 

"I hate you." 

"I would expect no less." He stepped up next to her, rain sliding down his robes, as he glanced down at her. "I am not, after all, here to be loved." 

"You are handling this far too well," she said, forcing the words out through chattering teeth. 

"So are you," he replied. Her eyes moved up to meet his eyes, but his expression was blank, unreadable. 

"I don't know what you mean," she whispered, turning back to the pitch. 

"No, of course, you wouldn't. For the smartest witch in school, Miss Granger, you are sometimes positively thick." 

"Tell me, **Severus**, how should I feel?" 

"So, it is 'Severus' now? I will remind you that you are still my student and that I will demand respect," he stated, his voice calm, but she could hear the underlying hint of exhaustion, but that knowledge did nothing to quiet the emotions seething in her. 

"You killed my parents. I feel that I have earned the right to call you by your name," she said quietly, her voice barely carrying over the patter of the rain. 

"You have earned nothing, Miss Granger." As soon as her name left his lips, she was moving, and her momentum caught him off-guarded, sending them both tumbling down to the wet stone floor. She threaded the fingers of one hand into his hair, tugging his head back, baring his neck as she pressed the tip of her wand into the soft flesh there. 

"You may not have muttered the spell, Severus, but you were there, and you did nothing," she hissed, pressing her wand harder into his throat. 

"You stupid girl. If I had stopped it, then someone else, someone less inclined to save you, would have been sent and the result would have been the same," he replied, his voice barely a croak, "But worse." 

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that **you** did nothing." 

"Perhaps, Miss Granger, if you would focus more on mourning your family and less on laying blame, then you would find yourself better able to move on," he replied, ignoring her words, and finally lifting a hand to push her wand away from his throat. She allowed him that, glaring at him. 

"Tell me, Severus, if I went to him, if I got down on my knees and cowered before him, kissing the hem of his robes, would he give me one of these?" As she finished her question, she moved quickly, forcing the sleeve of his robe up, baring his forearm and the Dark Mark that glowed an angry red in the darkness. "Would he give me the power, the ability, to kill innocent men and women? Would he?" He laughed then, pushing her away from him, as he sat up. 

"You know the answer to that, Granger." He leaned forward, pinning her wand arm to the ground, as he got nose-to-nose with her. "You are a Mudblood. He would kill you. He would consider the Unforgivables too good for you, and he would have Avery or Macnair split you open like a stuck pig. **That** is what he would do." He released her then, rising to his feet, brushing his soaking robes free of some kind of imagined dust. He headed toward the door, but stopped, turning back to her, his lips curling up in a sneer. 

"Ten points from Gryffindor for being out after hours. Another ten points for disrespect, and thirty points for attacking a teacher. You're lucky, Miss Granger, that I don't have you expelled for that little stunt." With that he turned, and slid back into the shadows. 

She watched him go, but before he could leave hearing range, she muttered, "You'll find, Professor Snape, that I can no longer bring myself to care." 

---------  
End. 


End file.
